


Laughing With Me

by Leyenn



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:11:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>We contemplate eternity / Beneath the vast indifference of heaven</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughing With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Geonn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/gifts).



> Post-episode for _Heroes_.

The crack of a beer can opening made her jump, quickly glancing around. For a moment, just a moment, it was Janet standing there.

A second ring was pulled under her watchful eye, and the can handed down to her. "I can't get used to you doing that."

The girl standing above her shrugged that off and settled herself on the next step up. "It's a pretty night."

"Of course it is." Those stars owned Janet Fraiser nothing less. "How're you feeling?"

Cassandra looked at her - and suddenly she was Cassie again, eighteen and sobbing into Sam's shoulder, held by hands that still felt tainted with her mother's blood and their own failure.

Five years, and some things never went away.

"I miss her, Sam."

She made a show of sipping at her can to hide the sudden burn of tears behind her eyes. "You don't have to tell me that, Cass."

"It still feels like she should be here, you know?"

The can crinkled under the sudden pressure of her fingers. _She should be here. You should be here, Janet. Damn you._

"And then... sometimes..." Cassie seemed to be contemplating her drink with almost single-minded attention. So much like her mother. "Sometimes it feels like she is." She took a swallow, avoiding Sam's expression. "You know?"

_So much like you, Janet._

"Yeah." Her voice cracked a little; she poured more thin beer down her throat, wondering if this year it might help. "Yeah, I know."  
"Do they still talk about her? At the base?" The same questions, every year. No matter where either of them happened to be living, working, however far away, it came back to this on this day. A six-pack of _her_ favorite and the back porch of this house, back here. Home.

And every year, the same answers. "All the time."

"She always hated that." It wasn't so much that Cass felt she should remind her, she knew - just that today, she felt like she should say it, say all the things that proved she hadn't forgotten who lay behind the locket she carried always at her throat.  
Sam knew, of course. Sam kept that same picture in her wallet. Colonel Carter didn't wear anything that could be taken from her on the other side of the Gate.

She'd learnt that lesson too deeply already.

"I know," she heard herself say. "She hated gossip. I remember she was-"

The words stuck and wouldn't come out. Cassie scooted down a step and dragged her arm up to cuddle beneath.

"No, she liked it when they talked about you two. She said it was nice... nice to be noticed for doing something right. Not just fixing up all your messes all the time."

Sam couldn't help smiling. "So, is there anyone else yet?"

"Nah." Cass shrugged, jostling them a little closer; Sam responded with a hug. "I guess Dominic's scaring them off, still hanging around the way he does."

"You should tell him..." Janet had been better at this, once upon a time. Probably she still was. "If it's bothering you, I mean. Guys shouldn't go where they're not wanted."

"He's okay. It's kind of nice having him around." She made a face. "Well, most of the time." The silence had a moment of decision in it, but she dived into the question before Sam could head it off. "How about you?"

_She gets better at that every year. This one's definitely your daughter._ "You know I'd have said if there was."

"I heard someone say Daniel finally went fishing."

Sam pretended to choke on her beer. "Who told you that?!"

Cass gave her a lascivious grin that could only have been learnt years ago. "Teal'c. Is it true?"

"Teal'c doesn't like to lie." The rest of the can was a good prospect for distraction, and she downed it in a slow gulp to ignore Cassie's giggle of excitement. "It's supposed to be kind of private, Cass."

"I'm not telling anyone." Another moment of consideration. "Well, I told mom. But that's okay, right?"

She wished the can wasn't suddenly so empty, now. Another distraction would've been good; instead she smiled and squeezed Cassie to her with one hand, dropping the can with the other. _Come next year and I might even be able to do this teetotal. Wouldn't that make you proud?_

"Yeah, kid, that's okay." There had to be a tear; every year. She felt wrong, not crying today of all days. But tonight there was only one, and it ran down onto a smile that didn't feel as pained as she'd expected. "I told her too. She was really pleased."

"Dominic says it's better to keep talking to people who've died." Cass made the proclamation as any twenty-something college grad would. "They're not really gone as long as we keep them around."

Sam struggled for something to say. "That why you wanna hear about the base so much?"

Cassandra nodded and curled into her shoulder. "I think if everyone still talks about her, then she's not really gone, is she?"

"She's never really been gone, Cass." That got her a hug slipped quickly around her waist, squeezed tight until she felt like the beer can under her foot, and then Cassandra wordlessly gathered up the rest of the six-pack and trotted back inside.

She sat there, silent, for as long as she could bear until the kitchen light went off and she caught the frosted window at the corner of her eye light up. Long enough to make sure she was alone.

Or not.

"I still remember sitting her in my lap, and swinging her across the playground. Our little girl grew up so quickly, Janet."

The night sky looked down at her with a kind of indifference she'd come to loathe, these last few years. How could there be so many places in the universe that didn't care how she'd lost the love of her life, out there, not even a place she could visit each year and say _this is it, this is where a part of me died forever_ and wonder what she could have done.

"You're standing there on some cloud just wanting to slap me so hard right now, aren't you."

The reply was a twinkle of stars, and she ignored that one of them had stolen Janet's life away.

"You're having fun out there, right?" She smiled at herself. "Right."

"She's going into the Air Force, you know. Of course you know, she's told you. She wants to be a linguist - got a great head start with that hok'tar brain of hers. Daniel's been giving her lessons... when he's not teaching Jack how to fish."

"I think Dominic's turning out to be a good catch, finally; he's got some good ideas in him. Might even be a keeper, it's been a while since there was a guy around the place. And I'll still beat the shit out of him if he backslides, don't worry."

"I miss you, Janet. But it doesn't hurt so much now... now that you'll be here forever."

  


*

  



End file.
